Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.
Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.
Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.
Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.
Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.
More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.
The politics of Prada challenged what I knew about the luxury brand. I knew that Prada started off as a handbag company that then pivoted into apparel. I also realised that some Prada items probably borrowed from military clothing design and fabric technology, such as Prada’s iconic black Pocono fabric backpacks.
This is pretty common across Italian design with Stone Island CP Company being prime examples. If you would have asked me about the politics of Prada, I would have expected it to be part of the wider anarcho-far left hatred of all prestige brands.
I didn’t realise that Miuccia Prada’s clothing designs reflected her own left wing, pro-feminist politics. The connections of Prada with yachting has less to do with the politics of Prada and more to do with the passion of her husband and business partner Patrizio Bertelli.
One forgets how politics in Italy, had elements of the far left with the Communist Party and the Red Brigades pitted against reactionary right including the Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge and the Bologna central station bombing on August 2, 1980. The politics of Prada is by its nature Italian. More related content here.
Aimé Leon Dore x DJ Stretch Armstrong
Aimé Leon Dore got Stretch Armstrong in for a set playing sublime vintage soul 45s.
Scott Galloway on the intersection of economics and technology
Professor Scott Galloway on the intersection of economics, social trends, consumer trends and technology.
Iran-Contra affair
The Iran-Contra affair was how the president Reagan administration, specifically ‘rogue’ elements within it like Oliver North and John Poindexter, came to swap heavy weaponry with the terrorist sponsoring government of Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages, and how money from these deals came to be diverted to a secret and illegal war in Central America.
Sean Munger provided one of the best accounts of it that I have seen outside of the Congressional report.
The most Hong Kong thing I saw all week
HKIB News – a cable and online TV news channel featured a news story about the first trip of local bus company KMB’s electric double decker bus. At the bus stop was a mix of young and middle aged (mostly) male business enthusiasts. In Hong Kong, bus enthusiasts is much more mainstream in the UK. There are shops that sell die-cast scale models of buses in different liveries, so you can get an exact period-correct bus. Bus enthusiasm and the continued popularity of radio controlled car builds as mainstream hobbies were two distinctive aspects of Hong Kong culture for me.
Much of this is down to the limited size of Hong Kong and the public transport infrastructure. Generations of small children have enjoyed some of their happiest memories starting and ending with a bus trip. Buses are the first line of public transport. Hong Kong, (and Singapore) have a good number of young men and women for which it is the dream career. Which is remarkable given that these are part of the developed world and have a good education system.
Instead in the UK, you have a job that pays minimum wage that no one dreams doing.
MLM or multi-level marketing is where people who need to make money buy product from a company like Avon, Amway, Herbalife, Nu-Skin or Tupperware. Usually the franchisee doesn’t buy directly but through a contact. They may be a long way down in a chain of sellers, which means you end up with a pyramid scheme. Some have described the onboarding and seller communications as a cult. (Disclosure, I did a bit of agency work on Nu-Skin when I worked in Hong Kong, I got to see products, but not how they were sold).
Financial freedom
The real product of MLM seems to be hope. Discussing the downside of MLM at this time is important. Financial freedom is going to sound particularly appealing to struggling middle class households wrestling with the cost of living crisis and rising mortgage interest rates.
These videos by Sean Munger give a really good insight into Amway.
Ponzinomics
Robert Fitzpatrick’s self-published Ponzinomics seems to be the most cited book talking about the underbelly of MLM. Here’s an interview with him.
Soviet space programme
Enough time has gone buy for us to know how innovative the Soviet space programme was. Some of the innovations were dictated to them by limitations in production campacity. I came across these films about it.
And how Russian closed cycle rocket engines surprised NASA after the cold war.
I, Claudius
Robert Graves period drama novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God were remade in 1976 as a 13 part TV series. (The first two episodes are called 1a and 1b, presumably to avoid an episode 13, given that theatre as a whole is superstitious). In 1965, the BBC had done a documentary about the unfinished 1937 film version and had found bringing their version to television difficult due to production rights still tied into the 1937 production.
I, Claudius was considered to be a high water mark from point of view of audience viewership of more high brow material and latterly critics consider it to be one of the best TV programmes ever on British TV.
Hello Hong Kong
I received post from friends in Hong Kong and the package had a large sticker highlighting the Hello Hong Kong campaign which the government has been using to paper over the cracks left by its authoritarian pivot.
Hello Hong Kong mandatory sticker.
One part of me thought that ambient media such as the sticker might be a good side hustle for mail services everywhere. As I dug into it, I found out that the staff ‘had to’ put these stickers on the packaging and at least some of them were doing so reluctantly. At least some customers were reluctant for their packages to be ‘propaganda banners’ for the Beijing backed regime. Meanwhile 7/21 alleged government backed triad actions are still fresh in the mind of locals.
YKK
You don’t think about how YKK clothes zips work effortlessly, but this Asianometry documentary gives you insight into the Japanese zip manufacturer.
Starbucks Rewards as massive bank
I used to use the Starbucks pre-payment system back when I could use it in both the UK and Hong Kong, but a rupture came in when Starbucks removed its rewards scheme from stored value cards to an app. So I found this video by ColdFusion reframing the Rewards scheme as a large bank like pool of money more akin to PayPal’s float than Avios loyalty points.
Apollo project astronauts off the record
On everything from the context of Project Apollo through to their views on climate change.
Restaurant of mistaken orders
A Japanese pop-up retail project with restaurant servers who are suffering from dementia. I was sent the link by a friend of mine from Japan – the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders really brings the impact home.
An interesting documentary from 1971 that explores the idea of ‘The Irish Race’ – it is one episode in a 10-part documentary series ‘We The Irish’. It features some of Ireland’s leading public thinkers at the time including Conor Cruise O’Brien and Seán Ó Faoláin. ‘Race’ as a term is more problematic now than back then as there were so few Irish people who weren’t white European looking as Ireland was a next exporter of people rather than welcoming inbound migrants until recent decades. Secondly, the Irish people were constantly having to establish their identity, culture, language and accomplishments in the shadow of their former colonial rulers.
Ó Faoláin an internationally famous short-story writer, a key part of the Irish arts establishment and a leading commentator and critic – a role played by the likes of Fintan O’Toole today.
The discussion about the Irish race was an essential part of decolonising the Irish identity; by emphasising Irish distinctiveness and salience rather than reinforcing racial superiority. A process that countries like Singapore and Malaysia would wrestle with in subsequent decades too.
Tracing The Irish Race
Ó Faoláin starts his discussion with the book Facts About Ireland that was published for over three decades by the Irish Government. The book itself is like a more in-depth version of the CIA World Fact Book profile on Ireland. It was available in souvenir shops up and down the country, my parents probably have my copy of the 1979 edition that I purchased from Salmon’s newsagent and post office in Portumna
O’Brien was part of the Irish elite. His father was a journalist for a Republican newspaper pre-independence and he married into the political establishment of the Irish Republic. But that shouldn’t take away from his achievements in the various facets of his career by turns was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic.
The series also marks a different kind of high brow factual television than we are used to seeing now.
The Case for a Hard Break With China | Foreign Affairs – U.S. theorists and policymakers ignored the potential risks of integration with an authoritarian peer. Globalization was predicated on liberal economic standards, democratic values, and U.S. cultural norms, all of which were taken for granted by economists and the foreign policy establishment – the arguments in the article are not new, what’s interesting is that they are being run in Foreign Affairs magazine and that should worry China
Tesla’s secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints | Reuters – Tesla years ago began exaggerating its vehicles’ potential driving distance – by rigging their range-estimating software. The company decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers “rosy” projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts. Then, when the battery fell below 50% of its maximum charge, the algorithm would show drivers more realistic projections for their remaining driving range, this person said. To prevent drivers from getting stranded as their predicted range started declining more quickly, Teslas were designed with a “safety buffer,” allowing about 15 miles (24 km) of additional range even after the dash readout showed an empty battery, the source said – fundamentally dishonest
Six Bubble Tea Chains Plan IPOs in Bet on China Consumer Revival – Bloomberg – Firms with fast franchise growth not allowed to list onshore. Mixue, ChaBaiDao, GoodMe among firms weighing listings. Who is to say that these businesses won’t be like Luckin Coffee? If the Chinese government won’t allow them to list at home and they don’t want to list in Hong Kong, one has to wonder about the state of these businesses
A couple of things about this video. Major Australian TV network asked YouTuber ColdFusion to make this documentary. YouTubers are now competing against TV production houses for production briefs. Secondly, the video offers a positive take on how machine learning may impact healthcare.
JustoffJunction.co.uk – genius app for planning British motorway travel, the reason why you would care would be the inflated prices at motorway services stops
The two stand out films of the summer are Barbie and Oppenheimer . Oppenheimer is a biopic of scientist and Manhattan Project lead J. Robert Oppenheimer, based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer went on to lead the projects Los Alamos lab. Los Alamos National Laboratory has gone on to do scientific research on defence projects as well as health related projects. Casting of Cillian Murphy provides a good physical resemblance of Robert Oppenheimer.
J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic
Oppenheimer is a complex film with the story told in the form of flashbacks. It also tries to reinterpret Oppenheimer for the present day, with a sense of guilt that Oppenheimer never personally expressed. But Oppenheimer had been concerned about the nuclear arms race and weapons proliferation. He opposed the subsequent development of the hydrogen bomb. These positions along with his friendships with communist party members in the US, led to him losing his security clearance in 1954.
J. Robert Oppenheimer via the US Department of Energy
Barbie
Barbie looks to bring to life Mattel’s toy characters Barbie and Ken. Barbie was introduced in 1959 as a copy of a German fashion doll line. The fashion doll line came out of a cartoon strip in the Bild tabloid newspaper. Mattel went on to buy the German originator and shut it down. But by this time the German doll moulds were bought or copied by manufacturers in Hong Kong and Spain.
1990s vintage Barbie
The Barbie movie addresses head on the cultural and design legacy of Barbie alongside present-day culture wars
Barbie starts off in a matriarchal fantasy world; Ken is represented as a boy toy
Eventually Barbie and Ken end up in the real world. Barbie meet her owner who accuses her of setting unrealistic beauty standards
Ken learns about the male patriarchy, which means a battle of the sexes ensues when they both return to toyland
Barbeheimer
Both Barbie and Oppenheimer were released in the cinema at the same time going head-to-head with Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. This led to cinema goers taking advantage and buying a ticket to see each film one after the other. The practice of watching Barbie and Oppenheimer as a double-bill became so common it was given its own name Barbenheimer, when then became a thing in the news, on podcasts and social media. It has been credited with listing the business performance of cinemas, while sit on the edge of a recession. In fact in the UK, for some of the weekend, both Picturehouse cinemas and Vue cinemas websites were having trouble handling customer traffic.
Google Tests A.I. Tool That Is Able to Write News Articles – The New York Times – One of the three people familiar with the product said that Google believed it could serve as a kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others, and that the company saw it as responsible technology that could help steer the publishing industry away from the pitfalls of generative A.I.
By the 1980s, radio dramas were in decline. This is in stark contrast to the first half of the century when famous literary and comic book characters had their own shows which covered everything from science fiction and fantasy to crime and horror. Famous names like Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, Batman, Superman, The Spirit, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade all appeared on radio. The Star Wars radio dramas started as a project to fire interest in the genre.
An academic at the University of Southern California looked to respark interest in radio dramas, using the local campus radio station to rejuvenate NPR Playhouse – the umbrella vehicle for radio dramas on the US National Public Radio (NPR).
These aren’t the droids you are looking for by Scott Beale
The university students moved on from adapting short stories and suggested adapting Star Wars. Director George Lucas was an alumni of USC and helped the production licensing the music and sound effects for a nominal dollar fee. The BBC helped out in return for broadcasting rights in the UK and some of the original stars including Mark Hamill signed on as cast members.
USC went on to dramatise two out of the three films from the original Star Wars trilogy. While they were originally multi-part series, an enterprising YouTuber has put them all together.
Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi: originally 6 episodes (1996) – made by HighBridge Audio instead of NPR or USC. HighBridge had distributed the previous recordings as a recording box set and when NPR and USC couldn’t make the recordings, they stepped in to do it instead.
The Star Wars radio dramas, alongside vintage recordings are enjoying a second life on YouTube in parallel to the increased consumer interest in podcast documentary dramas and Audible’s rejuvenation of audio books.
Jack Ryan final season
Amazon Prime’s adaptation of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise is probably the best adaptation that I have been. But all good things must come to an end and we are seeing the final season being rolled out. John Krasinski has arguably played the best version of the titular character and the writers have managed to modernise the show sympathetically. They have managed to make each season very relevant. This time Ryan is investigating a conspiracy of crime that might envelope the entire ‘black budget operations’ of the intelligence and defence communities.
The roads lead back to Myanmar via Shan State rebels and an NGO ostensibly set up to help victims of human trafficking. I look forward to seeing where the rabbit hole goes next.
Threads
I am on Threads – a new micro-blogging alternative to Twitter; so far it’s been underwhelming despite the rapid climb in new members. I am also on Mastadon and Post.News.
Godzilla Minus One
While American adaptions of Godzilla feel grandiose and bloated in nature, Japanese adaptions by Toho Pictures have managed to refresh and take an interesting new take on the titular character in Shin Godzilla. Godzilla Minus One changes things up by setting his rampage in a post-war Japan already devastated by the United States.
